Billy Graham Center Archives

Billy Graham Evangelistic Association
Clippings File - Collection 360

[Note: What follows is a description of the documents in this collection which are available for use at BGC Archives in Wheaton, Illinois, USA. The actual documents are not, in most cases, available online, only this description of them. Nor are they available for sale or rent. Some or all of this collection can be borrowed through interlibrary loan.]

In cases where an individual document (paper record, photo, audio recording, moving image recording, etc.) is online at the Archives’ Website, either the description of a specific item is underlined, or this symbol -- -- appears next to a general description to indicate that an item covered by that description is online. Clicking on the symbol or the underlining will link to the item. If there are two or more of these symbols -- -- that appear by a description, the number of symbols indicates the number of items covered by the description that are online, such as several different photos from a photo file.]

Part of this collection is available for inter-library loan. Click
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Brief Description.
This collection consists entirely of newspaper clippings,
magazine clippings, and some news releases about the work of
Billy Graham and the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association
(BGEA). There are over three hundred fifty scrapbooks of
newspaper clippings. One hundred sixty-five books contain
stories about individual crusades. The rest of the newspaper
scrapbooks, apart from a few miscellaneous ones about special
events, are arranged by country and describe BGEA activities
within the country for a specific time period. There are more
than one hundred books just concerned with the United States.
Also in the collection are more than four hundred fifty
scrapbooks of magazine clippings. The articles in these books
are mostly from United States periodicals. There are three
indexes to their content: subject, periodical, and quotation.
All of the scrapbooks are on microfilm and available for
interlibrary loan. This collection also contains several
boxes of loose clippings arranged by date.
Vol: Boxes (104 DC); 997 Scrapbooks (319.4 cubic feet)Collection 360
[January 12, 2010]
Bgea: Newspaper and Magazine Clippings File; 1950-
Records; 1932-2005; n.d.

Boxes (104 DC); 997 Scrapbooks
(319.4 cubic feet)

Restrictions

The microfilm copy of sections I through IV and VI of this collection must be used instead of the
originals.

Scope and Content Description

This collection consists of newspaper and magazine reports about the activities
of Billy Graham and the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association, along with indexes
to the magazine reports. The scrapbooks in parts I through IV and part VI were
compiled by the BGEA staff in Minneapolis, as was the index in part IV. Compiling
apparently stopped when the Minneapolis office was greatly reduced in 2003.
The clippings in part V were gathered by the staff of the BGC Archives.

The collection falls into six parts:
I. Scrapbooks of newspaper clippings in chronological order about particular
crusades
II. Scrapbooks of newspaper clippings about Graham or the BGEA in a particular
country. The scrapbooks for each country are in chronological order. Those for
the United States come first, followed by those of other countries in alphabetical
order by the name of the country
III. Scrapbooks of newspaper clippings in chronological order on miscellaneous
subjects
IV. Scrapbooks of magazine clippings and articles in chronological order. This
section also contains indexes to the magazine articles by subject, magazine
title, and quotation topic
V. Loose newspaper and magazine clippings and press releases in chronological
order. The scrapbooks in parts I-IV were created by BGEA staff, as were the
indexes in part IV.
VI. Additional scrapbooks added to collection in 2008.

Parts I through IV and VI are reproduced on microfilm and this microfilm
must be used instead of the originals. One scrapbook, #999 from the 1954 London
Crusade, has not been microfilmed.

Please note that there are numerous people, places and events cross
referenced to this collection in the microfiche index to the archival collections.
All of these subjects are listed at the back of this guide in the cross references,
but many are mentioned nowhere else in the guide. That is because it would be
impossible to mention specifically all the topics for which there is information
in this collection, consisting as it does of more than forty years of clippings.
If a researcher is looking for articles about John Doe and knows that John Doe
met with Graham in 1962 or John Doe lived in Chicago and there was a Chicago
crusade in 1962 or John Doe had some other interaction with the BGEA in 1962,
then obviously 1962 is the year to check for clippings. Therefore the researcher
would need to look at the year 1962 in all five sections. Except for section
IV, the collection is not indexed, so this kind of intensive searching is necessary
to locate material. The BGEA chronology, including crusades, available in the
Archival Reading Room, gives the dates of many events.

Part I: The scrapbooks in this section each deal with a particular crusade in a particular city or
location. They sometimes contain only newspaper clippings but may include posters or
correspondence or other items relating to the crusade. The reports in the scrapbook not only
cover the crusade itself but usually also the preparation beforehand and the continuation work
afterwards. Examples: Scrapbook 1 contains information about the Youth for Christ meetings
led by T.W. Wilson, who later became an associate evangelist of the BGEA. Scrapbooks 2
through 20 document Billy Graham evangelistic crusades held before the formal incorporation
of the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association, but the people and methods involved were the
same as those for the early BGEA crusades. In order that all the BGEA scrapbooks would be
together in one collection, some scrapbooks were transferred to collection 360 from collection
1. The container list of this guide identifies these.

Part II. The scrapbooks in this section deal not with a particular crusade, but with a large
representative sampling of the newspaper stores about Graham's and/or the BGEA's work in the
newspapers of a particular country over a particular time period. Thus the scrapbooks for
Australia contain not just stories about the crusades in 1959 and 1968 but any other story that
mentioned Graham or the BGEA. The newspaper stories from a particular country are, of
course, in the language of that country except for an occasional article from a United States
paper. Examples: Scrapbook 173 contains clippings from United States papers about the 1954
London Crusade. Scrapbooks 333-338 each contain clippings from more than one country.
In some cases, a country is represented in one of these miscellaneous scrapbooks for one set of
years and has its own scrapbook for another set. For example, clippings from South Africa up
until 1956 are in scrapbook 333 along with those from several other countries, but South African
stories from 1956 to 1986 are in scrapbooks 351 and 352, which deal exclusively with that country.

Part III. This section contains scrapbooks about specific,
non-crusade events, such as the premieres of movies produced by the BGEA's subsidiary,
World Wide Pictures or the convocation of the BGEA-sponsored International Congress
on World Evangelism in 1974. (See also srapbook 994 in part VI.)

Part IV. This section consists of magazine articles about Graham or the BGEA, along with
indexes to their contents. These indexes were prepared by the BGEA staff and, while not
exhaustive, are very detailed. As mentioned above, there is a index to subjects(which includes,
proper names of people, places and organizations as well as generic topics), another to magazine
titles, and a third to the subjects of direct quotations by Graham. Each scrapbook contains the
articles from a specific time period, usually a single month. The articles within the scrapbook
are arranged alphabetically by the title of the magazine. If there is more than one article from
the same magazine, they are arranged chronologically. The BGEA also sent to the archives
several boxes of loose clippings which were apparently to have been included in the scrapbooks,
but for some reason never were. These are also arranged chronologically and then alphabetically
by magazine title. On the microfilm of this collection, the scrapbook is always filmed first, then
the loose clippings for the same time period. Entries in the index may refer to the scrapbook or
to the folder of loose clippings that should have gone into the scrapbook, so both sources must
be checked in a comprehensive search. Each scrapbook in this section has two numbers, as can
be seen from the container list. The first is the number assigned by the BGC staff and is part of
the whole sequence of scrapbooks in this collection. The second (in parenthesis) is the number
assigned by the BGEA staff. The BGEA staff gave numbers only to magazine scrapbooks.

Part V. This section consists of loose newspaper and magazine clippings from a wide variety
of sources. Besides clippings, there are a few press releases, BGEA internal newsletters, and
miscellaneous items. They are arranged chronologically, usually one month per folder. In some
cases, because of the great volume of clippings, a folder will cover only a few weeks or days.
Clippings are usually not in chronological order within the folder. In many, perhaps most cases,
the clippings in section V duplicate those to be found in sections I-IV. Clippings are always
being added to this section and the number of folders is always growing, therefore there is no
box list. Researchers should simply request the folders they wish by month and year.

The subject matter of section I is almost exclusively evangelistic crusades.
Stories about crusades also form a large portion of sections II to IV, but there
are also stories dealing mainly or peripherally with Graham and, to a much lesser
extent, other staff of the BGEA, such as the associate evangelists. To see if
there is information for a particular event, it is a good idea to search a time
period at least a month before and after the event.

This section consists of 152 additional scrapbooks received
from the BGEA in 2008. Newspaper clippings, 1987-2005 (the very last scrapbook,
998, contains both newspaper clippings and paper printouts of stories from internet
news media. The BGEA staff for the most part stopped collecting physical clippings
from newspapers in September 2003.); Magazine clippings, 1983-2003. The scrapbooks
for each country are in chronological order. About 85 percent of the scrapbooks
in this addition contain clippings from American publications. Clippings from
United States publication are in scrapbooks 843-971, 995-998. Clippings from
a selection of publications from other countries are in scrapbooks 972-991.
The non-USA scrapbooks have both newspaper and magazine clippings. Most of these
clippings are about Billy Graham and or the BGEA. There is one scrapbook exclusively
about Franklin Graham, number 971. There are also two scrapbooks about the 1969
United States Congress on Evangelism, numbers 992 and 993 and one about the
International Congress on World Evangelization, also known as the Lausanne Congress,
number 994 (see also number 372) . Scrapbooks 957 through 961 contain many stories
about the aftermath of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on the United
States and Billy Graham’s role in the national memorial service. Scrapbook
996 has many obitiuaries and articles about Campus Crusade founder Bill Bright
after his death in 2003.

*****
The dates and contents of scrapbooks 1-998 can be found in the Microfilm List
below.

Provenance

The material in this collection came mainly, but not exclusively from the BGEA. Clippings and
press releases and other news items have been received by the archives staff almost every month
since June, 1975, when the Archives opened. The more important accessions are listed below.
The staff prepared the materials in sections I-IV for microfilming in the fall of 1988. The filming
was begun by an outside contractor in December, 1988 and finished in April 1990.

Because of the nature of the contents of this collection, there is no box and
folder listing. The researcher can find the appropriate scrapbook by consulting
the following list and then going to the indicated microfilm reel. And/or it
can be requested from section V, the file containing the loose clippings for
the time period in which he or she is interested. For reels 61 through 133 on
this microfilm list, there are many dates in boldface and brackets. such as
[January 1954]. These are the titles of folders of loose magazine
clippings sent by the BGEA to the Center after the microfilming project had
started. They were included in the filming. The loose clippings on the microfilm
follow the scrapbooks for the same dates.